The present invention is directed to a brush having soft, flexible brush elements frictionally secured to a circular disk without fastening hardware.
The brush of the present invention is particularly useful in automated commercial car washes, although the invention may be advantageously used in any brushing application.
Commercial automated car wash establishments have for years used bristle-type brushes for scrubbing cars to be washed. The bristles used were necessarily stiff and coarse because the brushes had to withstand severe and prolonged use. The disadvantage of this type of brush, however, is that the coarse bristles can scratch the finish of the surface of a vehicle being washed, detracting from the appearance of the washed vehicle. In addition, because the bristle brushes are relatively stiff, they pose a hazard to hood ornaments, antennas and the like.
There has long been a need for a flexible brush that effectively cleans the surface of a vehicle to be washed but does not pose a danger of scratching or damaging the vehicle.
A number of unsatisfactory attempts at providing such a brush having been made in the past. For example, U.S. Pat. Nos. 2,280,399, 2,508,065, 2,562,688 and 2,651,151 all disclose buffing wheels which have flexible buffing elements removably attached to a central mounting disk. Without exception, however, these patents require some sort of fastening means to secure the buffing elements to the disk. In addition to the obvious high degree of complexity and cost of such brushes, such brushes pose a safety problem. When the brushes are rotated at high speed, there is always the danger that a fastening element may become dislodged and be thrown from the brush, causing a hazard to people and machinery.
It is an object of the present invention to provide a brush with flexible brushing elements which offers all of the advantages of a flexible brush while entirely avoiding the disadvantages of prior art brushes.
It is also an object of the invention to provide a brush suitable for use in an automated car wash which provides effective scrubbing without the danger of scratching or damaging the vehicle and projections such as hood ornaments, antennas, mirrors and the like.
It is a further object of the invention to provide a brush whose diameter may be easily adjusted to permit simple field adjustment for brush wear.
It is another object of the invention to provide a brush in which the brush elements can be easily replaced in the field without tools and without the necessity of removing the brush from its mounting shaft.
It is still another object of the invention to provide a brush which permits variable stacking of brush disks for controlled brush density.
It is yet another object of the invention to provide a flexible brush in which no fastening hardware is required for mounting the brush elements to the disks.
These and other objects and advantages will appear hereinafter.